


The Tremor in the Leaves

by lirin



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21833791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: This is just another test run, Colin tells himself. Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t be nervous if he were here. (But he’s not here, and that’s why Colin’s going.)
Relationships: James Dunworthy & Colin Templer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Tremor in the Leaves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shotboxer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotboxer/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta (anon until reveals).

This is just another test run, Colin tells himself. There's probably a fifty percent chance the net won't open...though Badri's been running recon tests and unmanneds all night and he says every single one has opened.

Besides, Colin's been to World War II four times now, so if he does get through, it should all be old hat. If Mr. Dunworthy were here, waiting for Badri to program the last coordinates, _he_ probably would be standing calmly, or maybe even looking over Badri's shoulder and making helpful suggestions. He wouldn't be spinning his helmet over and over in his hands with his heart in his throat.

But Mr. Dunworthy's not here—that's the whole point. And he hasn't been here in years, and Colin's had to figure out how to be a historian without his help, and maybe he hasn't done as good a job of it as Mr. Dunworthy would have (because Mr. Dunworthy was better than _everybody_ at _everything_ ; that's how Colin remembers him, and Kivrin and Ned and everybody else don't seem inclined to disagree) but at least he's done it. And Mr. Dunworthy and Polly and Merope are waiting for him. (Christ, he hopes they're waiting for him. What if Binnie remembered wrong?)

"Ready when you are," Badri says finally, leaning back from the keyboard. "I'll keep a fifteen minute intermittent running for the first twelve hours, then hourly after that. Good luck."

Colin nods. He goes over to the mirror on the far wall to check his hair one last time, settles the ARP helmet firmly on his head, steps through the folds of the net, and gives Badri a thumbs-up. And then he waits.

It's not as if it's actually going to open. It will be like every other time this month that they've tried to open the net to 1941: he'll stand here for half an hour, feeling sillier and sillier, while Badri tries a couple dozen different settings, and then they'll finally give up and maybe they'll go out for dinner or maybe it will be too late and they'll all just go home to their separate lonely flats and Colin will think of Mr. Dunworthy and Polly and Merope and try not to cry (too much).

And then the laboratory vanishes around him, and Colin gasps involuntarily. Has it truly opened? If so, this is his only chance. He won't be able to come to this time again, and Mr. Dunworthy's deadline is very soon. He'll have to verify his temporal location right away, to figure out how soon. 

Spatial location is easy; it's immediately obvious that he's in St. Paul's, as expected. What's less expected is that there is a man standing near the drop, looking right at him.

That shouldn't be possible. The net isn't supposed to open if contemps are around. Except Kivrin had that one time where the guy thought she was an angel, and Grey had written about one time his landlady had been prone to hallucinations and one of her supposed hallucinations was Grey appearing out of nowhere...

Colin realizes that he's still standing there, in the middle of his drop where the net will snatch him right back away if he waits long enough or if Badri gets worried and opens it too soon. The other man hasn't moved either, and Colin knows perfectly well who he is, he's seen his face often enough though not in over a decade, and yet he can't get his mind to stop rambling or get his feet to move. "Mr. Dun—" he whispers, and his voice cracks. "Mr. Dunworthy?" That wasn't supposed to come out as a question. What if Mr. Dunworthy thinks that means he doesn't recognize him, hasn't pictured his face every day since he ran off to put a hood on that pocket torch? Even worse, what if Mr. Dunworthy doesn't recognize _Colin_?

His feet are finally moving, he realizes. Mr. Dunworthy is moving, too, and Colin hopes that the stunned joy on Mr. Dunworthy's face is for him, specifically, and not just because he's glad to finally be rescued. Except that's selfish: Mr. Dunworthy would be fully within his rights to be just as happy no matter who showed up here. Colin's just one of many people that Mr. Dunworthy has taken under his wing, and he shouldn't expect...

Then Mr. Dunworthy's wrapping his arms around him in the biggest hug Colin's ever had, and Colin feels like a kid again, except was Mr. Dunworthy always this _short_? Colin hugs him back, just as tight—except maybe not too tight, because he's fully grown now, and maybe he's stronger than he was, and maybe Mr. Dunworthy's older than Colin remembers, and he doesn't want to hurt him, and maybe—

Why is he still focusing on maybes? He's finally here, in the place that has for so long been a pipe dream that they could only maybe get to if they did everything right and the net finally cooperated, and now that that has been transformed into a certainty, it feels like all the other maybes in his life ought to fly away along with it.

"I'm glad to see you," Colin mumbles into the top of Mr. Dunworthy's head.

"No more than I am to see you," Mr. Dunworthy replies. "But I knew you'd come for me." He steps back to look at Colin, and claps him on the shoulder. "I take it the net was closed for several years."

"It opened to other times sooner," Colin says. "I've been doing research in the 1970s and '80s for the past few years. But for it to open to this time, right now...it's been over a decade."

"I hope you didn't use this incident as an excuse to shirk your schooling," Mr. Dunworthy says sternly.

"Which part of it?" Colin replies. "The part where we were spending every minute we could find on researching what was wrong with the net, or the part where you weren't around to encourage me not to ignore my homework?" He says it lightly. Mr. Dunworthy has already had enough to worry about; he doesn't need to know how much it hurt, not having Mr. Dunworthy's advice and encouragement when he was starting uni and trying to keep his grades up while still worrying about Mr. Dunworthy and the others every minute of every day. "Don't worry, I kept up with my schoolwork and I'm in a postgrad course now. One of the requirements for me to pass is for me to bring you home, so I'm afraid I have to insist that you come with me."

"You'll have no complaints from me," Mr. Dunworthy says. "What are you really studying?"

"No, that's what I'm really studying," Colin says. "I didn't want to spend the time on further school otherwise, because I needed to work on bringing you home, but then we found an option that would let me use my work on this project to fulfill work towards my degree. I'll probably want to interview you for the final chapter of my thesis. I'm calling it 'How I Saved the Day Without Even Going to the Crusades."

As he'd hoped, Mr. Dunworthy chuckles at that. "I look forward to reading it."

"Well, where we are it won't be written for another century, so I hope you're not planning on taking the long way 'round," Colin says. "Come on, we've been standing here too long. Can you take me to where Polly and Merope are? They're at a panto rehearsal, aren't they?"

Mr. Dunworthy nods. "It's across town, I'm afraid."

"Well then, even more reason to start now."

Mr. Dunworthy turns and leads the way out of the cathedral, and Colin follows. It's the first time he's been able to follow Mr. Dunworthy since he was a child, and Colin doesn't care how far they have to walk tonight. He would follow Mr. Dunworthy anywhere.


End file.
